Word.ws English Dictionary

shillelah

shillelah is the alternative form of shillelagh.

Meaning of shillelagh

Noun

shillelagh (plural shillelaghs)

  1. (Ireland) A wooden (traditionally blackthorn (sloe) wood) club ending with a large knob.
    • [T]he stem of a stout young oak or ash tree, into the end of which, where the roots had been rounded off, a quantity of molten lead was poured, making the shillelagh more formidable in such hands than a sword would have been – much harder to parry, and impossible to break.1842, Charlotte Elizabeth, “Letter IX. The Dumb Boy.”, in Personal Recollections. … From the London Edition, New York, N.Y.: John S. Taylor & Co. No. 145 Nassau-Street, Brick Church Chapel, →OCLC...
  2. Any cudgel, whether or not of Irish origin.

See all 3 meanings of shillelagh

Forms of shillelah

pluralshillelahs

Questions about shillelah

What is shillelah the alternative form of?
Shillelah is the alternative form of shillelagh.

Words near shillelah in the dictionary

  1. shillaly
  2. Shillary
  3. shilled
  4. shillelagh
  5. shillelaghs
  6. shillelah
  7. shillelahs
  8. shillelies
  9. shillely
  10. shiller
  11. shillers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shillelah (page history and authors); shillelagh (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “shillelah.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shillelah. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.